


Dog Days (A Love Affair in Five Parts)

by a_big_apple



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Puppies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-01
Updated: 2011-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-09 02:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7782766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_big_apple/pseuds/a_big_apple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for fma_ladyfest 2011, for zukpager305's prompt "Riza trying to train a litter of puppies."</p><p>She is undone by round, dark, pleading eyes, an adorable little nose, a rear-end wagging hopefully, and the barest hint of a beseeching whine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dog Days (A Love Affair in Five Parts)

01.  
  
Riza likes to think of herself as a no-nonsense person, and a serious and reliable soldier. Her command voice sends officers scurrying, regardless of rank; her stern glare quells any and all foolishness and horseplay (except for the sort she secretly wants to observe, for that she has a special, toned-down glower). But being a pet owner has taught her that even she is no match for an earnest, faithful, trusting expression. She is undone by round, dark, pleading eyes, an adorable little nose, a rear-end wagging hopefully, and the barest hint of a beseeching whine.  
  
And that's just Fuery, to say nothing of the wriggling mass of puppies he's holding out to her in a fluff-lined basket.  
  
"They were just in a _box_ , on the _street_ , in the _rain_ , I couldn't _leave_ them there!"  
  
"Didn't I sign your off-base housing request form just a week ago?" the Colonel mutters from behind his wall of paperwork. "I could've sworn..."  
  
"You did, sir, but it was denied!"  
  
"The housing department does tend to save off-base flats for higher-ranking officers and those with families," Falman adds, and Havoc whimpers.  
  
"At the rate things are going, none of us will ever have off-base places..."  
  
"Speak for yourself," Breda drawls from his spot in the farthest corner, one eye trained on the basket of yipping, snuffling, writhing pups.  
  
Riza closes her eyes and takes a slow breath. When she opens them again, the puppies are still adorable, and Fuery is still pulling that face she can't quite say "no" to.  
  
"I promise I'll find homes for them all, good homes, but they need someone to look after them in the mean time," he tells her, perhaps hoping to appeal to her maternal instincts. Riza has always considered it a myth that women are ingrained with a desire to care for and protect babies--at least, more of that desire than the average man has--but something in her goes gooey and warm when one of the pups, a mottled brown-and-black mutt of a thing with an odd splotch of white on its haunch, yawns hugely and shakes itself before burrowing back into the pile of its littermates.  
  
There must be some shift in her expression or her posture that gives her away, because Fuery grins like a madman when he sees it, and she makes a mental note to stop for puppy food on the way home.  
  
02.  
  
There are five altogether, though they seem like more when they clump on top of each other in a tangle of limbs. They are clearly a mish-mash of breeds, some with a terrier sort of look about the face, two with longer muzzles and huge flopped-over ears that suggest scent hound genes. These two are both female, uniformly red-brown, and identical but for a single startling blue eye on one of them. Their coloring puts Riza in mind of blood after it's dried, but that's too maudlin an idea to assign to innocents, so she calls them Cinnamon and Nutmeg instead.  
  
They are inseparable, Riza learns. All the pups take to Hayate with great enthusiasm, but for Cinnamon, only her blue-eyed sister warrants complete devotion. Nutmeg is an explorer, an adventurer (and a burrower, as Riza discovers when she follows a trail of fluff and finds the sisters curled up together in a hole torn into Riza's spare pillow) and Cinnamon follows happily at her sister's heels without hesitation. So many idiomatic phrases make sense now; top dog, puppy love, dogging another's steps. Hangdog expression, when Riza takes them for separate vet visits. Dog and pony show, when she trains them to sit, roll over, shake, and bow in unison.  
  
"How precious," Maria says one evening when she's come by with a sheaf of overtime paperwork and a chocolate cake as an apology. "Do you think they'll get very big?"  
  
Riza considers, sucking icing from her fork, then shakes her head. "Perhaps Hayate's size, if not smaller. See their paws? Delicate."  
  
Less than a week later, Maria's bought food and bowls and leashes and brushes and toys and a big soft dog bed, and Cinnamon and Nutmeg lick her face euphorically as she carries them away. Hayate stands at the door with Riza, watching them go, as the three remaining pups wrestle with a sock beneath Riza's bed. She and Hayate sigh as one, then share a look; he huffs affectionately, then trots off to rescue the sock and drag the pups out gently by their scruffs.  
  
03.  
  
The next day she passes Fuery and Major Armstrong in the mess hall; it's impossible not to hear at least the Major's half of the conversation.  
  
"Why, the Armstrong family has been raising purebred dogs for GENERATIONS!"  
  
Followed by a quiet but obviously earnest reply.  
  
"Well... it's true that my precious younger sister Catherine's birthday is approaching, and I trust any animal trained by Lieutenant Hawkeye would be an intelligent, obedient and affable companion..."  
  
The biggest puppy of the litter has bright sparkling eyes and attentive ears and a whiskery face with bushy eyebrows, and is black as soot from snout to tail. Riza calls him Cinder; that evening she teaches him a new trick, a little spinning dance on his hind legs, to charm young Catherine. When the Major comes to her flat a few days later, the wobbling of his moustache and telltale shine in his eyes say that the well-mannered but effusive Cinder has won him over. Riza helps tie a huge bow carefully around his neck, and waves goodbye at the door, a little sad to see him go. Hayate just thumps his tail against the floorÑif he moves more than that, the two pups sleeping sprawled over him will wake.  
  
04.  
  
"But Brother..."  
  
"You know we can't, Al. They're adorable, but we just can't take care of one. You wouldn't want to keep an energetic little puppy cooped up in your armor all the time, would you?"  
  
Alphonse seems to fold in on himself a little, the armor scraping and signing. He holds out a huge gauntlet, and the muddy-colored puppy with the white sock feet chomps down on a finger, tries valiantly to shake it back and forth. Alphonse laughs, and Ed grins, more pleased by his brother's happiness than the pup's antics. Faced with looming clanking armor or automail or just Ed's flesh hand rubbing his head, the puppy doesn't balk at anything--but he doesn't so much as nip that single flesh hand amid all the petting and playing, and Riza takes note.  
  
"Socks would make a good family dog," she says, and Ed looks up at her.  
  
"Socks?"  
  
"I had to call him _something._ "  
  
"A good family dog, huh?" Ed murmurs, and she can see him turning that over in his mind. "Hey Al, d'you think Elicia would like him?"  
  
Al brightens immediately, though how a suit of armor can convey a sunny grin without having a face is something Riza has never understood. "Oh, Brother, that's a great idea!"  
  
So Riza makes them a list of everything Gracia and Elicia will need, and the brothers go out to buy it; while they're shopping, she calls ahead to Gracia to get the okay.  
  
_"Those boys, they're so sweet to think of us,"_ she says, a smile in her voice, but a little sadness in it too. _"I think a puppy to take care of will be just what Elicia needs."_ She doesn't say "and me, too," but Riza hears it anyway, and sends along a puppy care book she'd found particularly helpful with Hayate.  
  
05.  
  
Hayate and the last puppy both join her at the door this time to say goodbye, seated side by side next to her like consecutive nesting dolls. She's taken more time to contemplate the white splotch at the pup's hip; she's fairly certain it's not just an inkblot-esque indicator of her state of mind, and that it actually is shaped like a gun holster. She calls him Pistol, because of the splotch and because he is quick and clever, and he's taken most of his pages from Hayate's book.  
  
It's not really that much trouble to keep buying puppy food, and before she knows it he'll be eating regular food anyway. And when he curls up against her in bed and yawns, showing shining milk teeth and a little pink tongue, well, she just turns to goo all over again.


End file.
